Industrial material handling vehicles are commonly found in warehouses, factories, shipping yards, and, generally, wherever pallets, large packages, or loads of goods are required to be transported from place to place. Material handling vehicles, commonly referred to as pallet trucks, typically include load bearing forks for lifting packages or pallets for transporting, an electric drive motor for propelling the truck, a steering control mechanism, and a brake.
Operators of industrial material handling vehicles have compiled and noted different information while completing tasks with the vehicles in a variety of ways. For example, in their simplest form, operators may have handwritten notes that include information such as completed orders or inventory of specific materials in the facility. More recently, industrial material handling vehicles have been equipped with scanners and display screens to provide information regarding tasks or materials to aid the operator. Depending on their placement, the display screens may be difficult for the operator to view or, in the circumstance where the display screen is a touch screen, the placement may hinder operation of the touch screen.
Additionally, to improve productivity and reduce certain costs, industrial material handling vehicles have been designed to include sensing features that allow them to be an automatic guided vehicle (AGV). An AGV may be programmed to store travel routes and include a control system which is integrated with the drive, steering, and braking systems for the vehicle. Among other reasons, sensing or locating features may be included in an AGV to detect the presence of an object to be lifted, as well as its position and orientation. This sensing or locating equipment, however, presents additional components (e.g. cameras, sensors, etc.) that must be installed on the vehicle. Mounting these additional components in a fashion that does not affect the performance of the AGV or hinder maintenance tasks thereon presents challenges. Furthermore, programming the sensing or locating features to coordinate with the drive system of the lift truck may be troublesome depending on where the sensing or locating equipment is installed.
Therefore, it is an object of the invention to provide an industrial material handling vehicle that overcomes these problems.